North Africa and the Middle East

Joan Ruddock Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, and I agree wholeheartedly with his comments, although David Warren is our ambassador in Tokyo, as I am sure he knows. Our staff are doing a tremendous job. There have been some criticisms of them, but I believe them to be baseless, and I hope the newspapers that have printed them will correct their accounts.

For good reason, the middle east has long been a central preoccupation in foreign affairs for successive British Governments and Members on both sides of the House. It is vital to our security and our economy, and many of the greatest challenges in foreign affairs, including nuclear proliferation, terrorism, religious extremism and piracy, are all present in the region. The search for peaceful co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians alone has demanded more international attention and effort than any other single international issue for most of the past 60 years, and the House will need no reminding of the loss of British lives during the war in Iraq.

On top of all those considerations, however, an unprecedented wave of change is now sweeping across the Arab world, triggering a series of simultaneous crises. Almost every middle eastern country has been affected at the same time by demands for greater political openness and democratic freedom. In Egypt and Tunisia, it has led to new interim Governments and the hope of a more democratic future. In Libya, legitimate protest has been followed by bloody civil strife at the hands of a Government willing to countenance any loss of life in order to cling to power. In each instance of instability, there have been implications for thousands of British expatriates who live and work in these countries, and I pay tribute, following the words of the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane), to British and locally engaged Foreign Office staff who are serving British citizens valiantly in extremely difficult situations. I put on the record my gratitude to them for their continued and often unsung efforts.

Each nation involved has a distinct culture, political system and level of economic development, so whatever their futures hold, there will be no single model. However, there is clearly a common hunger for justice, accountability, political rights and economic opportunity, given that the overwhelming majority of the demonstrations that we have seen have been peaceful and staged spontaneously by ordinary citizens. Our message to all Governments of the region is that without change popular grievances will not go away. The right to peaceful protest must be respected and responded to with dialogue.

[Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

Did the Foreign Secretary notice, as I did, the impressive women-only demonstration in Benghazi yesterday? Does he agree that there can be no real democracy in any country unless there is the participation of women? It is regrettable that the military regime now in place in Egypt has appointed a constitutional committee in which no female lawyer is present.